Eco-Friendly Luxury Hotels: InterContinental San Francisco Awarded LEED Gold Certification

InterContinental San FranciscoA big congratulations to the InterContinental San Francisco for its most recent honor! The luxury hotel a tower of translucent blue glass soaring 32 stories above the city skyline has just been awarded LEED Gold certification under the U.S. Green Building Council. (LEED is USGBCs rating system for designing, constructing and maintaining the worlds greenest and most energy efficient buildings.) Its rare to achieve this with an existing building; InterContinental San Francisco is the largest in California to get LEED EBOM certification and the third largest in the US. Since its debut in 2008, the 550-room hotel has shown its dedication to environmental stewardship. Its not just because of the linen and towel re-use program. Heres how:

InterContinental San Francisco Floor to ceiling windows throughout the entire property that allow for lots of natural light (read: not from light bulbs!)
Public transportation is used by more than 95% of the hotels staff, reducing the carbon dioxide emitted by commuting.
Retro-commissioning of its energy systems by bringing in a third party to evaluate and upgrade its current systems, making them more efficient.
A comprehensive recycling and composting program, diverting 80% of the hotel! s genera ted waste away from landfills and utilizing solar powered compactors.
Green cleaning methods are used throughout the hotel operations (think hepa filtered vacuums, Green Seal Certified chemicals and micro-fiber cleaning cloths).
Partnering with Renewable Choice Energy to reduce its environmental impact by purchasing renewable energy credits to offset 100% of its electricity and natural gas use, making the hotels energy use 100% carbon neutral.


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